Kingdom | Words United | Michael Rosen

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:04]kingdom. I read more and more of what I might call the kingdom justification for the present state of Israel. This says that yes, all sorts of people have lived in the territory of Israel and beyond over thousands and thousands of years.

[00:00:20]But it's only we Jews who've had a kingdom there. Having had a kingdom has become a justification for having a present-day republic.

[00:00:30]The justification might run into trouble in international law because say the borders of modern countries in Africa are not based on the old kingdoms as with say Zimbabwe. Trying to redraw that bit of the world's map wouldn't work. We might say too many people in countries bordering modern Zimbabwe might not like it. Mind you, the advantage of saying that Israel is the kingdom of David is that it would follow therefore that the real borders of Israel should stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates, that is from Egypt to Iraq and plenty more going south and west. Once again though, there might be that little problem of there being some other people living in these places. But as we've learned from history, there's nearly always someone who has a plan for dealing with this little matter. Watch this space.